Interesting take on sustainable vineyards

I wonder whether the "organic" or "sustainable" label confers more of a marketing advantage in France than in the US. The last time I saw Ted Lemon, he gave me the impression that it didn't help him a bit.
 
How many "natural" wine bars are there in the U.S.? Three? Four? There's that many on an average block in Paris, it seems. Definitely different worlds.

I agree that it helps at the artisanal end of U.S. winemaking not at all, or at least very little. It might help Fetzer; I dunno, that's not really my segment of focus. I mean, very few stores in my forlorn corner of New England have "organic" sections, and when they do: Frey, Fetzer, etc., and then Clos Roche Blanche, Barms Buecher, etc. Who is that conflation helping? No one, I think.

Email arriving in my box from my good friend who used to work for one of the above in 3...2...1...
 
Eric:
Tablas Creek is one of the good guys. I'm not sure what Thor means when he says it's too soon to tell if they're making terroir wines. I clearly get a sense of place with their wines and it's one of the few places in California where I do get a sense of place. At least with good wine. I get a sense of place with Fresno grapes for box wines, but it's not a good thing. :-)
But you have valid points as well. It seems like you're unloading with both barrels at a friendly target. Your wrath is probably better directed at the organic wines showing up in Trader Joe's or Whole Foods.
 
So, I hope that, soon, good organic growers will realize that using their farming philosophy as a trade mark for terroir wines is giving the industrial producers a very easy and cheap (for warm climate vineyards) way of reaching the last market segment they couldn't acess : the artisanal, terroir driven wines.

I have never heard Didier Barrouillet claiming that Clos Roche Blanche is one of the best Touraine wine because he is the best organic grower around (which is true BTW)
Tablas Creek makes good wines. Even Joe D. told me he respects them.
I really think that Mr Haas has a better job to do by explaining his take on what could be the terroir characteristics in his area, how he proceeds to reveal them (yeasts, destemming, harvest date, soil and canopy management...) than saying that not using carbamate or glyphosate makes better wines.

Yes, I might have shot at a friendly target. But sometimes even friends are doing things that might have really bad consequences.

Interesting topic, no?

originally posted by SFJoe:
I wonder whether the "organic" or "sustainable" label confers more of a marketing advantage in France than in the US. The last time I saw Ted Lemon, he gave me the impression that it didn't help him a bit.
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Joe,

I don't think so, directly. But again due to the confusion between "organic", "biodynamic", "sustainable" and "artisanal" , "natural", "terroir driven", it is now.
Most of french bars vin wouldn't pour a non "natural" wine. Very often organic is plenty enough in their mind.
But I have heard hundreds of times things like : "so you bottle without SO2 since you're growing biodynamic" or you're organic so you ferment indegeneous yeasts"...
on both side of the Atlantic.

Eric
 
I'm not sure what Thor means when he says it's too soon to tell if they're making teeroir wines.
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I mean that their vineyards are too young to be sure. I can't imagine they wouldn't agree with this.

organic growers will realize that using their farming philosophy as a trade mark for terroir wines
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This is the first and the most important of three points where I think you're astray (the second is marking Tablas Creek for special scorn, the third is calling Jason Haas a jerk, but we've already covered those). Haas isn't arguing what you claim he's arguing. In fact, he agrees with you on the negatives ("Still, too many wineries treat 'sustainable practices' as little more than a marketing ploy.") He does think the organic viticulture can lead to better wines, but terroir expression is only one component of of that ("I'm convinced that organic farming does produce wines with more intensity, flavor and character of place.") I don't have a reason to disbelieve him when he say that they're organic because they want to be organic, and from what you write now (vs. earlier) I don't think you do either. So then we're just talking about the market effects, right?

Along those lines, I don't see how your problem and your solution connect. The solution to not letting, say, Gallo free-ride on a weakly-define sustainable agriculture marketing bandwagon is for Tablas Creek to be quiet about it? I don't agree; in fact, I think that's crazy. First, there's no way to stop Gallo from free-riding, if it wants to; no one has the marketing muscle to stop them, and they're going to get the regulations they want by lobbying whether you or I like it. And anyway, they're not the competition for what you're calling terroir wines. Do you really think that people are looking at one of your Ctes-du-Rhne and a Constellation-sourced megabrand and thinking, "well, gosh, they both talk about a sense of place, and I can't decide which to buy"? No way. They're buying on price and brand recognition. In fact, my above-mentioned friend did in fact email, and his belief was that the marketing benefits for the large organic wine concern were largely ephemeral, at best. Of course, that was a best-of-both-worlds situation where the brand in question was actually organic in a good way, and the megacorp that bought it didn't fuck with it, even if they also didn't get much benefit out of it. And as a final thought along these lines, if Gallo really did improve their viticultural practices (truly, passionately so, not Wal-Mart "organic" and the like, with completely degraded standards), other than the sales impact on everyone else how could that possibly be a bad thing?

Second, and similar to the previous point, if Tablas Creek -- an acknowledged "good guy" -- is making quality wines and practicing actual organic viticulture (let me reiterate that I'm only going by their statements; I haven't interrogated nor investigated their claims), I should think it would be welcome that others, inspired by their results, might investigate the benefits for themselves. That isn't achievable if Tablas Creek is quiet about what they do. Many, many, many of the better, back-to-basics French (and Italian, and so forth) producers speak quite openly about how they were inspired by someone else's work. Isn't that what happened in Beaujolais? Isn't that what's happening elsewhere? Was Lapierre, or whoever it was that was the first of the new generation, supposed to work in secrecy so as not to let someone like Brun steal the marketing advantage of his practices? And if not, why should Tablas Creek have to act differently? For me, as a Beaujolais drinker, it's rather terrific to have so many producers working as anti-Duboeufs. I'd rather have more than small handful of producers from Paso Robles that I can drink, or at least respect even if I don't find the wines to my taste. I don't see how that's going to happen if the best producers stay mum about what they're doing.

Though I don't think they're exactly trumpeting this to the skies, either. The word "organic" appears on their back labels, and there's an article linked here, and Jason Haas has a blog. That's not exactly a standee in every wine shop in the country, nor a gatefold in each issue of the Spectator. Mostly, they appear to be marketing "organic" to people who are already buying their wines. Neither misleading nor dangerous, I think.

I really think that Mr Haas has a better job to do by explaining his take on what could be the terroir characteristics in his area, how he proceeds to reveal them (yeasts, destemming, harvest date, soil and canopy management...) than saying that not using carbamate or glyphosate makes better wines.
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Well, Jason Haas isn't the winemaker, so I'm not sure he's the best person to make that case anyway. As I said to Steve above, I think they're still very much in the process of discovering their terroir. And finally, what you claim he wrote is not in fact what he wrote; you're constructing a more extreme version of his actual message and arguing against it. I would be very surprised if it was your argument that better (actually better) viticulture doesn't lead to potentially better wines. That's all he's claimed, in the article in question. And obviously I would be very surprised if you didn't agree that people are using terms referring to improved viticulture for marketing purposes, since that's the core of your objection here. So again, I don't really know how much you and Jason Haas disagree.

Look, I very much understand your worry: that creating a desire for organic/sustainable/natural in the unwary consumer's mind allows predatory businesses to push industrial wine laden with the buzzwords but otherwise still fully industrial. I just don't think your solution will work. The buzzwords are already out there, like "green" and "diet" and "reduced carbohydrate" and all the rest. That cat, as they say, is already out of the bag. Jason Haas has to do a better job marketing? Yes, OK, I agree in this sense: you and he should both be promoting difference, not just the facts of the practices. That, too, is a marketing advantage within a certain segment of both the trade and the populace, and if it wasn't you and other producers wouldn't be selling your wines at all, especially not in the States, because your importers wouldn't be in business against the Southern (et al) onslaught.

So rather than picking at each other (except for M. Joly, who sort of asks for what he gets) about purity of practice and message, it seems to me that your strength is in constructing an alternative narrative that bypasses the buzzword-of-the-month, and most of you are far too small (and, let's face it, too busy making wine) to do that by yourselves. Rather than factionalizing, you should be working together. You should be aligning with Tablas Creek against the forces of darkness, boredom, and industrialization.

Interesting topic, no?
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Judging by the length of the above, yes.

But I have heard hundreds of times things like : "so you bottle without SO2 since you're growing biodynamic" or you're organic so you ferment indegeneous yeasts"...on both side of the Atlantic.
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Interesting. I've never once heard that in the States. Maybe I'm talking to the wrong people. Mostly, people have no idea what any of those words mean. But here, this is my point: assuming that this is your experience, how does it hurt to have Tablas Creek correctly explain their actual viticultural and winemaking practices? The F.U.D. that you're worried will be thrown up by industrial producers becomes the conventional wisdom if no one speaks against it. So someone has to. Better one voice than none.
 
I'm getting in late here, my apologies.

As someone who actively sells wine, I know that everyone is looking for a hook. I have to argue with people who insist that all my wines are biodynamic, natural, real, without sulphur and from 132-year-old vines.

It is very difficult to explain that wine is complex and beyond sloganeering. For years I used the term "real wine" because it was intentionally vague and didn't make it sound like I had joined a church. But my experience is that the public wants to find something simple and easily digestible to explain all. And the PR machines of the industrial producers are latching on to formerly marginal movements.

This is a good thing in some sense. No one owns a movement let alone a viticultural practice. But a crappy terroir where they ought to plant tomatoes or almosts will not make grand vin no matter how "correct" the practices in the vineyards or the cellars might happen to be.

I would rather industrial wine respect the earth and not to add to the our environmental problems.

So long as I don't have to drink them.
 
originally posted by Thor:
Rather than factionalizing, you should be working together. You should be aligning with Tablas Creek against the forces of darkness, boredom, and industrialization.
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Thor,

Of course you are right. And I have nothing specifically against Tablas Creek or Mr Haas. But...
I was involved not long ago in something similar through a french mailing list where people were saying that I should walk along Mr Vauthier at Ausone (biodynamic I was told), and stop bashing his winemaking (or should I say Mr Rolland's one).

I had the fortune(?) to taste 2005 Ausone (3360 /bottle).
My Brezeme retails for something like 20$. So you get half a pallet of my poor little syrah for the price of 1 bottle of Ausone. Which is perfectly deserved if you index the price on the amount of oak.
Really, I don't share anything with these people.
Frank Peillot is not certified organic. His vineyards are so steep that ploughing there is only possible 100% by hand (treuil in french).
Ploughing with a treuil is only possible if you can sell at Cte Rtie or Hermitage prices, so not for a Mondeuse du Bugey.
I like Frank as much as I like his wines. I admire him very much for his honesty and the incredible purity of his wines.
I share a lot with him.
I will always feel closer to growers who are dedicated to make beautiful terroir wines than to people who went Biodynamic for the show, the marketing or the politics.
 
Again, I'd just point out that Tablas Creek is hardly Ausone in price, size, aims, or practices. At least, not as I understand them. But I concur with your contrast between Ausone and Peillot, vs. the more arbitrary and non-qualitative organic/non-organic divide. There are things that are more important than external or internal labels, and on this we most definitely agree.
 
I don't think there is such thing as "organic" wine in the eyebrow-raised, finger quotations sense in the U.S. If you put organic on your wine label it is legally required to be produced according to Federal organic standards, including no SO2 added (!) If the label says "made from organic grapes", there are federal standards and certification requirements for the vineyard. So if Chateau Conglomowine fulfills those requirements and obtains certification, it meets the standards just as much as Tiny Artisan Cellars. If you believe that eliminating synthetic pesticide and fungicide and fertilizer use in vineyards is a good thing, then presumably the more and larger the vineyards doing so, the better, no? If they did it for a marketing reason because they thought it sold more wine, is that really a bad thing?

But, as Eric points out, how environmentally helpful is organic viticulture if it is accomplished with intensive usage of fossil fuels whether indirectly or directly. Or for that matter, shipping heavy bottles all over the country or world. And then there's runoff, erosion, stream destruction, water usage issues etc. Much of the environmental damage of slash-and-burn agriculture around the world has been accomplished organically. The reduction of emissions, the move towards carbon-neutrality and reduction of the environmental footprint is one of the things that the serious proponents of the maligned sustainability are striving for. These are things that are not addressed by organic viticulture or winemaking.

Mixing all this in with questions of authenticity, spoofulation, terroir, typicity etc. is not helpful, since as Thor reminds us, it is entirely possible to produce overripe, overoaked, concocted wines on an industrial scale from organic grapes while still supporting sustainability. It's not the norm, but it can be done.

A few fun facts from the consumer research front, just to spice up the conversation (consumers herein meaning high frequency, high involvement wine consumers, about 18 million of which exist in the U.S.):
--they are quite aware of "greenwashing", 61% agreeing and 20% strongly agreeing that "a lot of products claim to be green or sustainable without it really meaning much." 53% believe it requires certification or regulation to guarantee good environmental practices.

--a sizable minority has a decent grasp of the fundamental concepts of the sustainable movement, with over 40% saying that a wine produced sustainably must minimize use of synthetic fertilizers/pesticides and use only renewable resources and 30% saying minimize CO2 and greenhouse gas output.

--among those who have not purchased organic or sustainable wines, the leading reason is "I rarely or never see them in the market." There aren't many, they are not clearly or consistently labeled, and there are the looming issues of certification, authenticity and greenwashing.
 
Christian, stop introducing actual facts and real consumer data into the discussion. It's un-American.
 
As Pierre Breton is fond of pointing out, he is not a biodynamic producer. He is a wine producer. The end product is not biodynamie, but Bourgueil.

Someone called me from Food & Wine or Gourmet last year on a fact checking mission. They wanted to know if it was fair to describe Larmandier-Bernier as a Biodynamic producer. I said it was not factual, that they produce Champagne.

The mechanics of how clones planted in bad spots, with bad variety choices, at bad spacing, in sand or loamy soils, in hot climates, made with or without cultured yeasts, with or without pesticides, with or without enzymes, with or without spoofulation is probably a secondary consideration. I'm against the idea of the international wine brotherhood.

I'm more interested in what Kay is doing at the new Bixler winery and various other questions.

One question I have for Christian: why isn't the American public embracing Angelino Maul in large numbers? I can't understand what's going on.
 
originally posted by Joe Dressner:

Someone called me from Food & Wine or Gourmet last year on a fact checking mission. They wanted to know if it was fair to describe Larmandier-Bernier as a Biodynamic producer. I said it was not factual, that they produce Champagne.
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The fact checkers always love a wise guy.
 
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